Blackmail
by contrecoup
Summary: Vera Keyes begins to have doubts about tricking Sinclair out of his fortune - that is, until her and Dean have a nice little chat about who's really pulling the strings. Based on the blackmail tape you can find in his dressing room in the Dead Money DLC


Sitting huddled at her vanity, Vera hunched over a letter she'd read over what felt like a hundred times, though it'd only been delivered that afternoon. The last lines, in particular, held her attention, repeating over and over in her mind until they lost all semblance of novelty and blended into a familiar tune.

Know that, when I tell you I love you,

I mean it not only as a confession, but as a promise

to protect your from this world bent on going to hell with itself.

Regardless of its fate, our love will live on, and, with you at my side,

we will begin again.

With infinite love,

Frederick Sinclair

She tucked a smile into her palm. "Our love will live on" - Christ, which B-list movie had he stolen that line from? Still...his cheesiness was beginning to get to her. She couldn't pinpoint exactly when the switched had occurred, but, at some point within the last few weeks or so, that grandiose sentiment he seemed to bring to every aspect of his life somehow became endearing. With a little time still left before curtain call, she let her mind wander to him, eyes trained on the note still clutched between pinched fingers.

"Pretty as a picture."

The words startled her, their origin somewhere beyond the reflection of her dressing room mirror. Jumping up from her desk, she quickly jammed the note away in a drawer and scanned behind for the intruder, a sigh escaping when she recognizes who it is.

"Uh, Dean...I-I didn't hear you come in," she offered, praying her tone sounded surprised and not guilty. He was standing propped against the door across the room – blocking her escape?, she wondered, though she was sure she just picked up Sinclair's habit of dramatizing the situation.

He quirked a playful eyebrow, amused by her stammering state.

"I'm afraid I'm not wearing my dancing shoes, so I walk a little _softly_ now." The emphasis sent shivers down her spine and she's wasn't sure why. Giving it her best attempt to look innocent, she stealthily slid the drawer shut with her hip and leaned back on her fingertips above it.

He had that look to him – the kind where you _knew_ he suspected something, which was enough reason for her to be on edge as well. His suspicion, while aimless, was no less tenacious than the rest of personality, and he'd managed to sniff out quite a few rats with nothing to go on in the time that she'd known him. She tried her best not to break his gaze, knowing full well he'd take it as a sign.

Her lack of response prompted another smile, devilish and cold, so that she shivers again.

"What – d'you think I was some chinamen? Here to cut your American throat..." He pushed off the wall and began to move towards her. Twirling his cigarette in two fingers, he leaned in close, close enough for her to knock over a a few nail polish bottles in her scramble to put a comfortable distance between them.

"Dean...really." She hoped her tone sounded playful enough. Hoped that her laugh didn't sound nervous.

"What – no hug?" His arm snaked around her waste, whispering next to her ear in a sultry sweet purr.

"C'mere..." Her skin catches most of the word as he drew his lips to the base of her neck, murmuring warmly into her skin. Dean closed his eyes against the sensation, and Vera fought against the urge to do the same.

Panicking, she pulled away, but not before her heart clenched, with fear or something more basic, she wasn't sure and didn't care to consider.

"D-Dean, I'm getting ready" the words couldn't come out nearly quickly enough. Finding an excuse to retreat to the table across the room (and as far away from him as possible), she pretended to fiddle with the contents of her purse; her hands are still shaking when she pulls at a lone tube of lipstick and attempts to apply it.

Dean seemed content to stay where he was, even humming a few sing-songy notes of a tune under his breath. He busied himself at the mirror - studying his reflection, teasing a few tuffs of hair here and there, slicking it all back out of his eyes. Giving his reflection a wink of approval, he directed his mirrored gaze towards Vera, the movement nearly imperceptible behind his sunglasses.

"You sing like a bird, pop the safe and we're as through as through can be." He seemed to taste the words before he says them from the way they slip off his tongue. Though he stared at her reflection, she didn't look up. Giving her time to think it over, his eyes flicked back to himself; he toyed with his bow-tie, played with setting it straight, tilted his head curiously to study the curve of his jaw...

The silence abruptly breaks when she sets down her lipstick, somewhat forcefully, with a loud 'thump' on the table, a tight little sigh barely held back.

"Dean-...I just..." she started to turn, but after catching his eye in the mirror, she shys away in mid-motion, and speaks to the floor instead, "...about tonight – I...I don't know.

"You don't _know_?"

One word – just a single word, a mere drop of a thing – but it wrenches her stomach out from within. Her hearts began to pound, loudly and fervently, threatening to drown out the approaching sound of his shoes scuffing across the carpet. She's almost afraid to look up, but forces herself to when he takes hold of the table behind her, one arm on either side, pining her frozen in place.

"I ask one simple favor of you, and you tell _me_ no."

Lividity laced his tone, hardly concealed anymore. Vera sputtered, now trapped – her face, her body, _everything _too discomfortingly close to the man seething in front of her.

"I didn't say, no! I just said that, I don't think-"

Without warning, he brought his fist down, hard, on the table behind her, shutting her up. She felt her entire body freeze up, too terrified to even breath. His gaze is sharp, unwavering, staring her down as if daring her to move, drawing out the tense silence until, finally, he leaned in close, practically dripping the words in her ear.

"Your right. You don't think."

He let the words hang in the air for moment. Even so close, she still couldn't read his expression, a blockade of black glass showing her only her own reflected terror. Finally, pushing off the table, he strode back to the desk and picked up one of her framed photographs of Sinclair, studying it for a moment before finally speaking over his shoulder.

"I don't need you." He stated flatly. "I'll send you back to the farm – worse off than you were, because you'll have seen the Sierra Madre, and had to let it _all _go."

He let the picture fall from his hand; it collided with the floor with a sickening crunch of broken glass. Vera gulped. Peeking over his shoulder at the sound, he took a slow puff of his cigarette, leaning up towards the ceiling to let it out. He began to move towards her once more, taking a step at each word.

"I could have gotten any leggy dame out of Hollywood to get out here and play Sinclair's heartstrings. You just happened to be the one I caught, and it was really your own fault." Reaching her, he gently took her arm, turning it over in his hand to study the track marks barely visible against her tanned skin "– a little too much into the chems and meds and..."

He traced the dots to the top of her arm, pausing to stroke each one as he passed it, only tearing his gaze away when he hears a choked sob. When he catches her eye, it becomes all too apparent that she's barely holding back tears.

"Aw – shhh, don't cry..." He slipped his hand around her waist to bring her close, murmuring soft coos into her hair. Taking hold of both arms, he gently pushed her in front of him, condescendingly bright smile on his face, rubbing his hands up and down her arms as if to comfort her. She sniffed, managing to hold back all but a few tears, those of which he catches and dabs with a crooked finger.

"Now look – I'm not trying to hurt _**you." **_He assured her, peeking over his sunglasses._** "**_Just one last little job – a little less _dirty_, a little less _messy_."

Raising his hand to sweep a stray hair out of her eyes, he brings it down to trace the curve of her face, ending up at her chin, which he tipped towards him with his index finger and thumb, for her gaze had fallen to stare fixedly at the floor.

"He _trusts _you, Vera. _And so do I_." He squeezed her arm, perhaps a bit too hard.

"After this, I promise you, all those other holotapes - they'll go away." His tone makes her cringe; it was light, mockingly hopeful – as if he were comforting a child. He offers her a smile that, if she didn't know him better, she'd have sworn was the genuine article.

"Of course Dean." She breathed. _Of course_.


End file.
